We went with some friends up to The Wet Spot yesterday and I came home with new plants and fish (they were out of Corydoras habrosus so I'll have to get them later). I think I have identified the plants but we shall see! (Their printer wasn't working so I didn't get the full page detailed receipt with names)

And no I didn't quarantine the fish before adding them, I know, I know.

Let the quick and dirty cell phone shots commence!

First up plants, I have done my best to identify them:

Brazilian Pennywort (Hydrocotyle leucocephala)

Red Ludwigia (Ludwigia repens)

Rotala wallichii (Rotala sp. 'wallichii')

Ludwigia Peruensis (Ludwigia glandulosa)

My "stem" section (I'm not a very good decorator)

FTS

Couldn't get a shot of the new Pork Chop Rasboras (Trigonostigma espei) but there is a short video here: http://youtu.be/1BwBFnsvMJ4
They are schooling with the Emerald Eye Rasboras so I now have a school of 22, 11 of each.

I also bought some Excel that I just started dosing today, didn't quite dose the full 25ml initial dose because I'm a chicken. I took out the crypt plants I had in there for now and moved them somewhere else since it's looking a little crowded now and those things spread like crazy for me.

I haven't done well with stem plants in the past so we'll see how these do. Between this new sand the the tweezers I bought the planting of these went flawlessly instead of me wanting to rip my hair out like before so that's a good start. They are rock solid in there too and the current isn't uprooting anything. I also spent over an hour going over each stem and washing under running water to make sure I didn't get any pest snails. I had previously just been lazy and did a quick bleach dip but I really want to give these stems the best chance at life with me since I'm sure some of them aren't really the best for my set up.

I'm open to suggestions and ideas for placement, etc. Thanks for looking!

I thought about doing some Osmocote + root tabs or something but as of now there is nothing. I am thinking about adding my RCS into the tank once the plants fill out a bit and after reading a few people say they never put Osmocote in a shrimp tank I opted out for now. Plus I don't know if this is going to be the arrangement long term and I know that moving things around and disturbing root tabs isn't the best.

I've been dosing Flourish Comprehensive weekly after water changes according to the "EI low light/weekly" calculation here: http://calc.petalphile.com/non-mobile and just started Excel which I'm thinking I'll dose every other day and see how the Amanos do with that.

I still get easily confused by all the light/fert info but I'm trying to take it all in slowly and learn as I go.

Well the Ludwigia Peruensis (?) is pretty much all gone now. It all slowly melted and mushed into oblivion.

I had stopped dosing the Excel after only a couple times to see if that might have had an impact but it still continued to waste away. I think I'll start up the Excel again here pretty soon.

Everything else seems to be hanging in there despite my extremely low light.

Had a horrible experience with the moss walls I made for my new 20 long, a pretty frustrating few hours, I don't recommend clear plastic sewing thread (what I had on hand), go with zip ties. Apparently my fish are smart enough not to get stuck behind them when they are placed on the front of the tank for viewing and testing but within a minute after putting them on the ends (where I had planned on putting them in the 20) I had a Pork Chop stuck behind one and while trying to get the suction cups off the glass to free it an Oto decided to join in on the carnage.

After a short freak out on my part and my husband stepping in everyone survived with no injuries and I threw the moss walls in the empty 20 with a little bit of water until I figure out what to do with them. Funny how I can handle people getting their fingers cut off and multiple scenerios of law enforcement having to be called out at work but a fish in distress pushes me over the edge.

The Rasboras aren't schooling at all anymore, not sure why. The smaller female betta is chasing the bigger one into hiding an awful lot, considering getting a third but it's hard to know if that would help or make things worse.

I've got a bag of media hanging in the tank but I might still take a FTS here later today, not much has changed other than the plant death though.

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